


Say a Prayer, James Brown

by GreyLadyBast



Series: Songs in Idiot Minor [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Boys Kissing, Dancing, Gay Keith (Voltron), James Brown Makes Everyone Horny, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Dancer, M/M, Misunderstandings, Slow Dancing, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 01:55:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLadyBast/pseuds/GreyLadyBast
Summary: Ever since Pidge had figured out how to account for signal decay all the way out here, Lance had been listening to old Earth  music and blowing off steam with late night solo dance sessions. That is, until Keith walked in on him shaking it to James Brown...and James Brown makes everyone feel sexy...
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Songs in Idiot Minor [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212260
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Say a Prayer, James Brown

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at Klance. My first attempt at sexual tension of any kind, really. Please be gentle. I bruise easily.

Ancient music was a lot better than Lance expected. Pidge had finally figured out a way to account for signal decay in her endless attempts to pick anything up from Earth, but even she couldn’t get around basic physics. So everything she picked up was at least a century old, if not older, which most of it was. The Blue Paladin couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard an actual contemporary pop song, never mind the esoteric alt rock he refused to let anyone know he loved because it would ruin his image. But any Earth music was better than no Earth music, so Lance enjoyed what he could get. Besides, ancient music really was a lot better than he’d expected.

He currently bopped along to some guy called James Brown. His songs had a sound that really made a man want to shake his hips. Or snuggle up close to an adorable honey and gaze deep into their eyes while slowly swaying side to side and pretend that’s dancing. Either worked. Too bad he didn’t have a suitable partner.

Oh, he had _willing_ partners aplenty, but willing and suitable were not the same thing. Hunk would always take a turn around the dance floor with him and so, surprisingly, would Pidge. Unfortunately, neither of them had the rhythm God gave a woodpecker, so dancing with them was somewhat less than satisfying. He did it anyway, because _dancing,_ for one thing (and he was a strong lead who could compensate for a bad partner), and for another, he’d never hurt either of his friends’ feelings by letting them know how bad they really were, but it wasn’t what he was looking for, move-to-the-music-wise. 

Coran had tried to introduce him to Altean dancing, but that was an epic disaster. One for the books, in fact, it was so bad. Altean dancing had a lot more to do with wedding line dances or Renn Faire folk circle reenactments than anything, which made pulling it off with two people nigh-on impossible. Even adding Hunk, Pidge, and Allura to increase their numbers didn’t help. So that was a no-go.

He ran into the same problem with Allura he’d had with Coran. She simply didn’t have a concept of partner or solo dancing. It wasn’t something she could wrap her head around, and he didn’t know how to explain it. So that let her out, to his everlasting dismay.

Finally, while he’d have given good money he didn’t have to dance with Shiro or Keith _(have you seen those two?!? That level of hotness should not be allowed. They were as bad as Allura, not that he’d ever admit that out loud to anybody ever, let alone them)_ there was no universe in which he possessed the courage and confidence to actually _ask_ either one. Invite his hero or his sworn rival to dance? Yeah, no, he preferred his sanity as intact as it was gonna get out here, thanks anyway, so how about we let’s don’t? Which left Shiro, Keith, or heaven help him, fantasies of both, safely tucked away in an extremely private mental folder hidden in a symbolically locked file cabinet stuffed inside a metaphorical disused lavatory deep in an inaccessible subconscious sub-basement behind an imaginary sign labeled ‘beware of rabid dingoes.’ So yeah, that ain’t happening.

All of this left Lance bouncing around the training room by himself (he’d gotten to it before Keith, surprise, surprise) to astonishingly good music that was old before his grandparents’ grandparents were born. The portable player and headphones system Pidge had come up with in exchange for a solemn promise to _get the hell out of her face and let her work in peace for five ticks, what the fuck, Lance, honestly!_ worked brilliantly, picking up all kinds of signals with amazing sound and noise cancelling and everything. It wasn’t an epic sound system, but it did the trick quite nicely. He could hook the player up to the training room’s speakers if he wanted to, but he was in the mood for _loud_ and he just didn’t think it was fair to blast his teammates out of bed at three in the morning with the dulcet tones of _I Feel Good. _So, headphones.

He’d’ve been in heaven if he’d had someone to dance with.

As it stood, there was this particular song he’d listened to on repeat during his 80s phase (which 80s? he had no damn clue, it was just labeled 80s on whatever screwball system Pidge had going) that he related to hard, dancing with himself like an idiot. Still, as with Earth music, any dancing was better than no dancing, so with himself he danced.

Not like _that,_ ya perv! At least, not here and not now, though to this music remained a distinct possibility. But ‘dancing with himself’ could wait until he’d burned off some frustration by actually dancing. By himself. With no partner. Again. Fuck.

This was not working.

James Brown switched from the dancey stuff to the sexy stuff right on cue, as if the universe were just waiting to twist that celibacy knife. While he wouldn’t call himself the town bicycle (that was Griffin and everybody knew it) he hadn’t been this hard up for playmates since he’d gotten rid of his virginity.

“Castle full of hot people and I still can’t score a make out session that doesn’t feel creepy like kissing a sibling,” Lance grumbled under his breath. He thought.

“Why would you want a make out session in the middle of a war?” a voice broke the silence between songs.

Lance jumped out of his skin, through the ceiling, orbited the castle, and crashed back into himself before his brain caught up to what was going on. Namely, a certain Red Paladin he’d _just_ been having ~~disturbing~~ ~~entertaining~~ ~~very interesting~~ ~~really really fucking confusing as hell what the fuck?~~ thoughts about not two dobashes ago leaning against the doorframe of the training room, arms crossed and scowl firmly in place.

“Jesus, Mullet, warn a guy, willya? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” he bitched, pausing the music and pulling down his headphones.

“What are you doing in here, anyway?” Keith went on, ignoring the complaint as he stepped into the room and up to Lance. He didn’t quite get in his face. Not quite.

“I was dancing, what did it look like?” Lance snapped, defensive and irritable.

“You call that dancing?” Keith didn’t exactly sneer. Not exactly.

“Well, what do you call it?” the taller boy demanded.

“I call it flailing around like a lunatic,” the shorter boy retorted.

Lance gasped as he stared at Keith for a second, insulted and hurt. He didn’t get up Keith’s ass about his fighting style, which frequently looked like some weird-ass anime come to life, so where did he get off running down Lance’s preferred exercise? Didn’t he know how much stamina and flexibility and strength it took to dance? Or did the guy just think so little of him that anything he did must suck by definition?

Lance didn’t say any of this, though. He just glared, grabbed a towel and slung it around his neck, then stalked out snarling, “whatever.”

Well, he tried to stalk out, anyway. Unfortunately, the target of his ire stood smack in between him and the door, which meant brushing much too close for comfort on the way out. At minimum. If Keith was feeling reasonable. Which he wasn’t.

The Red Paladin stepped right in front of him, blocking his exit. He said gently, “Lance.”

“Out of the way, Keith. I’m done for the night. Move,” he growled.

Keith didn’t. Of course. Because why would he ever make things easy for Lance? That was not how it worked. The universe that clearly hated a certain Blue Paladin had obviously declared otherwise. Drove him nuts, but what’s a guy to do? Can’t control other people’s behavior. His ‘relationship’ with Keith would look a lot different if he could. It would actually _be_ a real relationship, for starters, and not this weird rivalry he’d made up because he couldn’t have the boy for real and this was the only attention he could get so he’d have to take it. 

“Lance, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well and I wasn’t expecting the training room to be occupied at this hour. I’m kinda bitchy right now,” Keith apologized. What the fuck?

“I noticed,” Lance remarked dryly, not letting him off the hook that easily.

Keith glared but let it go. He redirected the conversation, saying, “you never really answered my question. What are you doing here, dancing alone at three in the morning?”

“You’re not the only one who has bad nights, you know,” Lance reminded the other boy.

“I know,” he replied, thinking mostly of Shiro, “it’s just…you’re not the first person to spring to mind when it comes to _late night exhaust yourself so you can finally sleep for a change_ sorta things. I figured you were the one person on this ship who sleeps well.”

“I’m not.”

“Clearly,” Keith agreed, “want to talk about it?”

“Not especially,” Lance answered, thinking but not saying _and definitely not with you._

“Fine,” the other boy replied after a moment of tense silence. He grumped, “you gonna be much longer? I really do need to hit something.”

“Hitting something isn’t the only way to blow off steam, you know,” Lance pointed out. He wasn’t done, dammit, he was still all wound up so he was gonna be much, much longer, and oh, what the hell? He abruptly decided he was going to talk his way into a dance with this man if it was the last thing he did. He could always blame sleep deprivation if things went south. And if they didn’t…

Well, that could open up endless possibilities, couldn’t it?

“What, you mean ‘dancing’?” Keith snorted. The unused air quotes were audible.

“You think you can do better, Mullet?” Lance saw his opening and jumped on it shamelessly.

“Of course I can do better,” Keith scoffed, taking the bait.

“You think you got the moves? Show me your moves,” the taller boy challenged. He held his hand out in the universal _dance with me_ gesture.

“I can’t hear the music through your headphones,” Keith tried to cop out.

“Easy fix,” Lance pressed a couple of buttons so the next song came through the speakers. He turned it down to a level they could still hear but wouldn’t wake the others, set the player so all he needed to do was press one button to change the song, then paused the music. This wasn’t the tune he wanted, but it made the point. He wiggled his fingers, arching an eyebrow in a move he knew was guaranteed to get a rise out his teammate.

It worked like a dream. With a huff, Keith placed his hand in Lance’s, grumbling, “don’t pick a shitty song.”

“Oh, I know _exactly_ the song for this moment,” Lance smirked. With a twinkle in his eye, he put Keith’s hand on his shoulder while his went at the small of his partner’s back, just above his waist. He started the music, and off they went.

“Move your hips, hon,” the Cuban boy instructed as he led his partner around the training room to _Good Good Lovin’_ , which he totally picked because it was mercifully short and not to send some kind of message, lyrics notwithstanding. Keith was stiffer than he’d expected from someone so graceful on the battlefield. Thankfully, Lance had always considered himself a good lead, which served him well now.

Keith shot his friend a look and echoed, “’hon?’”

“Shut up and dance. It’s not a long song,” the friend in question commanded. Keith, for a miracle, obeyed. He even moved his hips. Ho boy, did he move those hips! It made Lance regret choosing such a short tune.

Sadly, all good things come to an end and this fleeting dance did too. Lance dropped Keith’s hand to stop the music, let go of the rest of him and took a step back. He shamelessly looked the Red Paladin up and down before admitting, “not bad. Not necessarily what I’d call ‘the moves,’ but not bad at all. We should do this more often.”

“We could do this more now. I’m not tired. Are you?”

“Not at all.”

“Then let’s dance,” Keith absolutely did not bite his lip suggestively. Lance didn’t mirror the expression, nor did he pick a slower, sexier song on purpose. He didn’t pull Keith in closer this time, either, wrapping his arm around the other boy’s waist rather than letting it stay at the small of his back. Keith didn’t slide his hand up to rest on the back of Lance’s neck, nor did he play with the tiny hairs there, sending shivers down the Cuban boy’s spine. There was no gazing into each other’s eyes, not one single ~~lingering~~ ~~lustful~~ ~~astonished~~ ~~what the hell are we even doing?~~ meaningful look exchanged. Not one bit of that happened.

Except all of it. All of it happened, was happening, and Lance felt like he might just explode from the huge tangle of feelings and desires rising within him. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they went from annoyed rivals to _this_ over the course of a two minute song from like five million years ago, but he wasn’t about to argue with it. The boy felt good in his arms.

They danced quietly for a bit before Keith suddenly asked, the very picture of innocence, “are you trying to say something with this tune?”

“What?” the Blue Paladin squeaked, “what gave you that idea?”

Keith gave him a flat look that clearly demanded _don’t play stupid with me_ but said nothing, letting the brittle silence hang. 

_“I want you, but you don’t want me_ ,” James Brown wailed as though to prove Keith’s point. Lance swallowed, suddenly nervous as fuck. What the hell was this? What was going on here? What was he even _doing,_ seriously? And how was he not dead already?!?

“Do you really think that?” the Red Paladin went on, ignoring the question entirely.

“Think what?” again with the squeaking. What happened to Loverboy Lance and his endless confidence?

Keith jerked his chin up towards the speakers in the ceiling, where the Godfather of Soul lamented his inability to help it. Lance nearly lost his rhythm at that flash of bedroom eyes. He gulped before pointing out, “well, yeah. Of course you don’t want me. Don’t you kind of hate me?”

Keith would have stopped dead in his tracks had Lance not kept them moving to the music. Instead, he frowned, “where did you get that idea?”

“You mean aside from every interaction we’ve ever had?” Lance asked archly, his body moving on autopilot as they danced, “nothing specific comes to mind.”

This time, Keith did stop, devastation in his eyes. He knew he was bad at conveying his feelings, but this bad? Really? So bad that Lance thought he hated him? So bad that the boy he’d been desperately trying not to drool over ever since he caught him sleeping so adorably on the floor of his shack in a cuddle puddle with Hunk and Pidge that first night thought he hated him? How the hell did that happen and how did he fix it? He had to try. Since straightforward and blunt had always been his way, he just stated outright, “I don’t hate you.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Lance retorted. He tried to get them moving again, as the song was nearly over, but Keith stayed firmly put.

“I don’t!” he insisted. He squirmed out of Lance’s grasp and took a step back, acutely aware of being all up in the other boy’s space where he clearly was not welcome, dance or no dance. He repeated softly with downcast eyes, “I don’t hate you.”

The Blue Paladin wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly cold. It probably looked like he’d crossed them in anger, but he didn’t much care. He’d been having a good time until Keith had to go and ruin it by opening his mouth and reminding him how impossible this all was, and how unlikely it was to happen again. He just wanted to have a nice dance with a hot guy he’d been crushing on since the Garrison. _Was that really so much to ask?_ he thought, _really?_ Apparently, it was.

“Sure you don’t. That’s why you have to show me up at absolutely everything, make me feel worthless every chance you get. Because you don’t hate me,” the taller boy sniffed dismissively.

Keith gaped at him, appalled. He had no idea Lance felt that way. The smaller boy tugged on fistfuls of his own hair as he protested, “god, Lance, that’s not what I’m doing at all! I just…I mean…it’s just that….agggghhh, I can’t _do_ this stuff!”

With a feral growl, he launched himself at the other boy, taking them both to the floor with ease. Keith straddled Lance, pinning his wrists securely above his head. He licked his lips, shamelessly ogling the boy beneath him. _If you were me, would you take it?_ the song pleaded.

 _Yes,_ Lance thought, lost in those violet eyes that threatened to devour his very soul. _For this man,_ _I’ d take it. I’d take it and want more. Yes. Absolutely yes._

Keith might not be the best with social cues but being able to read body language was vital in a fight, so that, he learned how to do. He knew an unspoken yes when he saw one. That Lance bit his lip, batted his eyelashes up at him, and gave the tiniest of nods just reinforced the idea. So he took his chances. Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, right?

Without breaking eye contact, without releasing his grip, Keith leaned down and kissed Lance.

There was nothing tentative about this kiss. No hesitation, no doubt, no giggling shyness. Keith kissed Lance with boldness, possessiveness, an overwhelming desire he thought would burn forever satisfied at long last. Keith kissed Lance as though he claimed the one thing in the universe that was truly his. More than Shiro, more than the Red Lion, this boy was _his,_ and he made damned sure Lance knew it. 

A tiny whine vibrated deep in the Blue Paladin’s throat. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t stop it. He didn’t want to. He matched kiss for kiss, passion for passion, claiming with being claimed. He moaned softly as Keith’s tongue explored his mouth, letting go of his wrists to cup his face gently. Lance clutched at the back of Keith’s shirt, wanting so badly to grab his ass but lacking the courage to do so. He could barely wrap his head around this kiss, forget more. More felt greedy. More felt impossible. More felt…more.

He wanted more.

Keith must have sensed something because he stopped ravaging his partner’s mouth in favor of an inscrutable stare. After five eternities or so, he finally murmured, “let’s take this to your room.”

Lance nodded eagerly in his soon-to-be new lover’s hands, whispering, “yes, please.”

The Red Paladin scrambled off the Blue, holding his hand out to help the younger boy up. Lance took it gratefully, still a little shook up from that kiss and trembling in anticipation of what could possibly come next.

They remembered to turn off the lights as they left but forgot the music. They grinned like idiots as they left the training room to James Brown crooning, _You’re Mine, You’re Mine._

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes, I know the song is properly called _I Got You (I Feel Good)_ , but do you seriously think a teenager from who-knows-how-many-hundreds of years in the future is not gonna think of it by its most repeated phrase?
> 
> Also, should I attempt the inevitable smut scene this leads to? I've never written smut (though I've read plenty) so I'm not sure I can do it justice. Leave an opinion in the comments if you would be so kind, please?


End file.
